Electrical cables, which have one end of its electrical wires electrically connected to a single electrical connector, are used for many purposes. Various cable-making apparatuses are available for automatically making electrical cables. Japanese Patent Publication No. 60-30009 discloses one of these cable-making apparatuses wherein front ends of electrical wires are clamped in a movable shuttle which is moved to a first position at which the wire front ends are electrically connected to a first electrical connector. The shuttle is unclamped from the wires and returned to its original position whereafter the wires are fed to a prescribed length, electrically connected to a second electrical connector and cut from the wire supply thereby forming an electrical cable. The cable is then transferred away from the cable-making area at a right angle thereto so as not to obstruct the cable-making area.
FIG. 6A shows electrical wires 100a and 101a which have one of their ends electrically connected to respective electrical connectors 100, 101 while the other ends are electrically connected to electrical connector 102. In this case, connecting wires 100a, 101a respectively to connectors 100, 101 and connecting wires 100a, 101a to connector 102 requires two operations which cannot be done by a single cable-making apparatus at the same time. Thus, while a first cable-making apparatus is being used to connect electrical wires 100a' and 100a" to connector 100', as shown in FIG. 6B, tape 103 is applied to the unconnected ends of the wires so that the wires are properly spaced for a subsequent operation. FIG. 6B also shows that wires 100a' and 100a" can be of different lengths.
A cable with one of the ends of the electrical wires connected to a connector while the other ends are taped could not be transferred away from the cable-making area of the apparatus whereas a cable with both ends of the wires connected to connectors could be transferred away from the cable-making area of the apparatus.
In the case of the cable having one of the ends of the wires connected to a connector with the other ends being taped, an operator would have to apply tape to the other wire ends and remove the cable from the cable-making area because the taped wire ends could not be moved away from the cable-making area by the transfer mechanism due to the wires being flexible. This meant that time was required to apply the tape to the wire ends and remove the cable from the cable-making area before the next cable is made. The rate of making cables was poor and the operator was subjected to possible injury because the taping and removing operations had to be completed before the shuttle would start making the next cable. In addition, one or more of the wires would come loose from the tape.
As a result of the low production rate of the cable-making apparatus, the finished cables were placed in a special container where they would become entangled. Separating the cables proved to be troublesome and time consuming and wires would become free of the tapes.
It therefore became necessary to provide a cable-making apparatus to overcome the foregoing problems which could operate at a faster rate, automatically tape the unconnected or leading ends of the electrical wires after they have been arranged in spaced relationship, cut and connect the trailing ends of the wires after they had been fed to a prescribed length thereby forming a cable and transferring the cable from the cable-making area.